News 5 Cleveland highlights Journey Center’s DALE program

The City of Cleveland and surrounding suburbs are implementing the DALE program to identify higher risk victims of being killed by a partner.

The Journey Center for Safety and Healing rolled out a program to help officers identify high-risk situations for the City of Cleveland. The Danger Assessment for Law Enforcement (DALE) program is now expanding to the suburbs of Cleveland.

Cleveland's success is now expanding with the first suburban police department to roll out DALE in South Euclid. Just this year alone, the department has received more than 60 calls for domestic violence cases. South Euclid Police Chief, Kevin Nietert, says these situations are emotional and that this program helps the officer's investigation. 

A 10-question checklist identifies victims of a higher risk of being killed by a partner. The program’s work in the City of Cleveland’s 1st and 5th Districts has seen a 62% decrease in domestic violence homicides over the past three years. This kind of progress brings hope with the expansion into the suburbs.

The Cleveland Foundation helps fund the expansion of the training and implementation of DALE to a few departments. There is even further hope of development with Aisha’s Law, currently in the Ohio Senate, which could expand the assessment of higher risk domestic violence cases to all departments across the state. And by doing these assessments, we can strengthen the victim’s case